The Man Who Draws Everyone
What do you give to the man who draws everyone?
Pens. And lots of them.
Andrew Mitchell has been drawing his followers from across his social media profiles for the past few weeks. He manages to capture the identity inherent to avatar images while adding his own distinctive style. In a sense, Andrew interprets the avatar image to make it personal again. It becomes a gift between himself and his followers.
::
@bella from @andrewtmitchell It hasn’t been easy. As of October 3rd, Andrew has
sketched over 200 of his followers. It’s been taking a solid chunk of his time, and utterly exhausted his collection of ballpoint pens. In fact, Andrew has found himself occasionally returning to his Iceland home with new ballpoint ‘friends’ from the local bank.
When we discovered this at Piictu HQ, we hurriedly mailed off a set of fresh Piictu pens. They had only recently arrived at Piictu, but we could think of no better recipient than the man whose portraits were causing an explosion of activity from Piictu users.
:: @baylie from @andrewtmitchell
For several days, we waited to hear something from Andrew confirming the emergency shipment of art supplies. But there was only e-mail silence. Then last Tuesday Andrew told us that the pens had arrived, but had been seized by the oppressive Icelandic customs authority. He waited out their demands for a $50 fee, and was able to collect the pens a few days later.
:: Fresh supplies! Here we go from andrewtmitchell Andrew’s project captured our imagination at Piictu, prompting us to add new features on his suggestion. When Andrew messaged us about his need for full-screen avatar images, we added it into our very next update. It was the least we could do to accommodate his creative project.
:: @adenis from @andrewmitchell There are over 200 images of Andrew’s followers to date. The artist insists he’ll do 700 more and that’s no formal limit. His dad thinks he’s crazy and that he’s given himself “ a job for life. And one that doesn’t pay.”
But he’s undeterred. He gets a boost of energy whenever he hears someone is happy with the result. On a flight from Iceland to London, Andrew finished 40 drawings on the plastic tray table. A passing hostess nudged him as he finished a drawing.
“Lovely,” she said.
He kept drawing.
